


Will He Won’t He

by Solitarysynonym



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-21
Updated: 2018-11-21
Packaged: 2019-08-27 07:40:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,483
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16698223
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Solitarysynonym/pseuds/Solitarysynonym
Summary: Dave wants to ask Jade to the prom. There’s only one problem: this means he has to ask Jade Harley to go with him to the prom.





	Will He Won’t He

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Stripe](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Stripe/gifts).



There was a distinct possibility that this was not a good idea. 

Signs pointed toward this being a bad idea but, Dave reasoned, that wasn’t a good argument for _not_ doing it. If he didn’t do things because they were “bad ideas” he’d just never do anything at all. 

——-

“I can’t believe you’re going to do this,” Rose said, raising her eyebrows at him. 

“It’s your idea!” Dave exclaimed. 

“Ideas aren’t actions, David.” 

Dave groaned and rubbed his cheeks with both hands, eyes squeezed shut behind his shades. 

“If I don’t ask she can’t say no...”

“If you don’t ask, the answer will always be no.”

Dave opened his eyes to glare at her serene expression. “I thought you were trying to help me talk myself out of this.”

“Whatever gave you that impression?”

“The fact that you _just said_ that it was a bad idea.”

“I never said it was a bad idea, I said that I can’t believe you’re going to do this.” 

“So you think it’s a good idea?”

“I also never said _that_.” 

Dave groaned again and folded his arms on the lunch table, hiding his face. 

“What’s wrong with Dave?” John asked.

Dave felt the thump as John set down his backpack before sitting on the bench next to Dave.

“He’s going to ask Jade to prom,” Rose said silkily.

“Rose!” Dave yelped. 

John turned round eyes to him, making Dave glad for his shades when his best friend turned on that megawatt grin. “You _are_?” John asked, delighted. 

“What’s Dave doing?” 

Dave couldn’t tell if his stomach was full of butterflies, hot lead, or had entirely ceased to exist. It seemed to be doing all three at once. Maybe Jade would know? She was good at all that physics quantum nonsense. Schrodinger’s... dog? Or maybe it was a cat. 

“Oh he was just-”

“Rose!” Dave hissed, relaxing slightly when she smirked at him but stopped talking. 

Even out of the corner of his eye, Dave could tell that John was grinning like the madcap idiot he was. 

Dave turned around, disentangling his legs from the bench and getting to his feet. Jade was a little taller than him, even when he didn’t slouch, even if you didn’t count her wild hair. He loved that about her. _Liked_ that about her. He opened his mouth to ask her, but no sounds came out. 

“Dave? You ok?” 

Jade’s big green eyes behind her big round glasses were watching him with concern. If he didn’t get this out she was going to haul him to the nurse or just run off to get him something to drink and he had to tell her... had to ask her. 

“PROM,” he blurted out. 

Dave was going to die of mortification. Maybe another Dave would come back from the future and put him out of this misery of embarrassment as John burst out laughing and Rose snickered quietly. 

Jade didn’t laugh. She tilted her head to one side. “It’s in a month. What about it?” 

“Go to it?”

He could feel the blush starting and he cursed his pale skin that showed his emotions like a marquis. Might as well just hold up a flashing neon sign proclaiming himself an incapable idiot. 

Jade blinked, comprehension failing to dawn across her face like the sun over a pagan civilization that had foregone its necessary midwinter ritual. 

He was going to have to get it out. He neared Rose clear her throat and knew with sudden clarity that the only thing worse than flubbing this invite this badly would be for Rose to issue the invitation for him. 

“Jade will you go to prom with me,” he managed to say, his face as hot as a thousand suns and probably looking like he’d just gotten sunburned by every last one of them. 

Jade frowned slightly, her dark eyebrows coming together. “Oh... sorry... Rose already asked me.” 

Dave’s jaw dropped and he turned to stare at the slyly grinning Rose, speechless over the betrayal. 

“And so did John.” 

Maybe several other Daves would appear to put him out of this extreme awkwardness. He turned back to face the ever-so-relaxed Harley. “...and what did you say?” 

Her smile finished off what little self-possession he had left, leaving him adrift in the fiery crucible of how much he was in love with Jade Harley. “I said not unless we take Dave too! Will you go to prom with us?” 

John howled with laughter, pounding his fist on the table. Rose had her hand over her mouth as she laughed at him. Dave turned to glare at them both, then back at Jade, who looked so pleased with herself. 

“Of course,” Dave agreed, feeling more than a little poleaxed. 

Jade grinned. “Oh good. 

She took her usual spot at the table beside Rose, holding out her hands to the other two. “Pay up, I told you he’d ask me today.” 

Dave gasped. 

Rose sighed. “You couldn’t have held out until Friday Dave?” She asked. “Who invites someone to prom on a _Thursday_.” Rose looked Jade over. “I still say that outfit’s cheating.”

Jade grinned toothily. “Not my fault I look fantastic in green rain boots.” 

“They are an abomination.” 

“You got them for me for Christmas!”

“That’s how I know how abominable they are.” Rose handed over several bills. 

“John, your turn.” 

John grumbled and dug for his wallet. “I don’t think I should have to pay up either.”

“You bet me he’d ask before _any_ of the rest of us. It doesn’t take a seer to tell you that that was _never_ going to happen,” Rose pointed out. “You made the bet, you pay it.” 

Jade collected her winnings smugly. “And I will put this toward a limo for all of us,” she declared, then looked at Dave. “Aren’t you going to sit down?”

He slumped onto the bench, scowling at all of them. “The _betrayal_.” 

“It’s for your own good, Strider,” Rose said primly. 

“Is it?”

“Well it’s more for our amusement. Although you could have just gotten over yourself and asked her out weeks ago when you first started whining to me about it.” 

“Weeks?” Jade demanded, looking over at Dave. “You’ve been thinking about this for _weeks_?” 

“Why do you think I told you you couldn’t ask him out?” Rose said sweetly. 

“Jade was going to ask me?”

“Of course. Anyone who isn’t John could see that you were never going to manage it on your own.”

“Hey!”

“You bought that coffin, Egbert, now lie in it.”

“I’m not the goth.”

“Fine, you bought the novelty suitcase. Now jam your clown memorabilia into it.”

“If you’re going to be like that I’m wearing a Ghostbuster’s jumpsuit to prom.”

“The hell you are, John. I will light you on fire. If you show up in that thing I will manifest my Carrie-esque mental powers and literally light you aflame.” 

“Dave! Tell Rose I can wear my jumpsuit if I want to!”

“Not if we’re going as a group. You will wear a suit, Egbert. Maybe if you’re good you can get a bright blue cummerbund and bow tie.” 

Jade giggled. “Maybe you can wear a Ghostbusters undershirt? Or boxers?” 

“No,” Rose declared. “I am dressing all of you and that’s final.”

Dave rolled his eyes behind his shades as the bickering continued. The butterflies were long gone, having taken the molten lead with them (somehow) and he had the feeling that this was going to be a better prom than he could have imagined.

He hesitated, eyeing Rose suspiciously. “What was going to happen if I _hadn’t_ asked Jade out if you weren’t letting her ask me and you and John certainly weren’t going to tell me what the plan was?” 

Rose smirked at him. “Well then the three of us were going to go to prom together and you could sit at home alone to think about the consequences of chickening out of spending time with your friends and loved ones.”

Dave scowled at her. 

“Are we your loved ones?” Jade asked, grinning at him. 

Dave made a strangled sound and buried his face in his arms. 

John thumped him on the back. “Cheer up buddy, we’ll find you a nice red velvet suit.” 

“You will _not_ ,” Rose insisted. 

“I think he’d look good in red velvet!”

“You are wearing bright green rainboots Jade. In _May_.”

“It rains in May sometimes.”

“There isn’t a cloud in the sky!”

“It’s good to be prepared.”

Rose shook her head. “I can’t believe I asked you to prom,” she said despairingly, then laughed when Jade gave her a kiss on the cheek. “Well, here’s to us.” She toasted the rest of the group with her bottle of sparkling water. 

“If this were a teen movie we’d cut to an outfit montage.”

“John, you need to get out more.”

**Author's Note:**

> Nanowrimo day 21! I blame Stripe for how easily a beta ot4 comes to me when I need fanfic writing material.


End file.
